Stranger staring back

Watching everyone's faces for a trace of worry,
Looking over my shoulder to see everything is the same.
Hopefully wishing for a break from these routines.

No one says otherwise. Not a word seems misplaced.
No excuse for me to doubt,
This stranger staring back into my face.

But I do. I know your secret. I know.
You assume my position, and even my accents.
Still, you're a stranger living in my skin.

What do people do -- maybe my elders?
When they cannot recognize the mirror looking back,
When a stranger sleeps in their beds?

I'm searching for my shadow that's been misplaced.
Straining to see some clue to where I've gone.
I'm lost, oh why, when I'm where I've always been...

the beginning of the ends meet

I'm hearing melodies in my head,
and I feel a rhythm pulsing in my bones --
A building anthem rising
Amid my heart that's torn apart.
My hands are slowly getting weaker,
I cannot seem to find,
The strength to pick up where we left off,
Strong legs to leave it far behind.

You hear the tyrant wind howling,
Tearing flesh down to the bone.
You see the whole world wakefully sleeping,
A key without a home.

I know I said I was resolved,
Three I's, no you's, no we.
I could make up my own mind to
Never need you, never dream.
And though we said we didn't want this
No, not this way at all.
I'd still do it all again, dear,
Just to know that I could fall.

We're all a sleeping forest.
Lines of grey around the light.
Yet in this dark December,
I wish it was you holding me tight.

For a mandolin and a banjo...

Eddie Vedder and I are getting our acts together.
Well, he's singing about change and rising up, facing the world and shunning society's ways of doing things, and I - I am thinking that it sounds great AND like a lot of work.

Feel my pain

If you could,
Just maybe translate something for me.
See, I don't know how I'm supposed to feel,
And I don't know how I can react.
Because I don't feel.
Some might think I have tapped into,
A Midas' touch if there ever were one.
But I would just like to:
Cry when I am sad
Dance in joy
Reflect the pain I feel,
In some way, when I am forgotten, judged,
snubbed, ignored and all else.
I would just like to feel it for my self.
It is so detached from me.
Can someone feel it for me?

On things undeserved and hope

With all of the change
Still You have not forgotten
All things will be right

A lament, not a complaint.

Cashmere smooth
The words spoke softly
Leaving no room for hope
And no hope of change
Quietly disquieted
Surfacing discontent
I look at calm waters
And think all life is good within

Loud dissonance
Churning of the very foundations
Crying out for answers
To the questions that we stand against
Loud and demanding
Attention commanding
Watching an ocean of fury
And seeing nothing good at all

What two waters should I choose?
You know what I will
I long for easy answers
And I'm afraid to drown

[Blank]

This is for the times when trust seems like letting go of your foothold.
When repetition and frustrations become routine.
So we can look back, and we can see over broken roads;
And we can trust in a Strength stronger than determination.
A Fire brighter than the sun.
A Hope weaving in creation,
Beautiful stories yet untold.

Still, I sit here.
That same old damned feeling.
No Midas touch, and no gold, just withering.
And I am stretched out, a broken road
Waiting for The Strength stronger than my determination.
The Hope of all creation.
Please, whisper Your stories in my heart.